Kilkenny GAA Thread Part 3 **MOD NOTE POST 1***

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Sorry, he's on the ignore list now!

That's a bit odd alright. Who would you want to see in there? (Genuine question, I haven't a clue about the minors anymore!)

My preference would be for Moylan at full and Jamie Young at centre. And despite having tried 4 different full backs Harry Walsh has never been played there despite the fact he plays there regularly at club level and captained the Kieran's Juniors to an All Ireland win last year at full back.

Kilkenny’s respect for the U-21 grade has been in free fall for the past 15 years. We have been paying the price for the past 10 years. 2008 our last win, and the last time our U-21 side produced a hurler of real class,ie Hogan and TJ.

Kk have been producing soft hurlers for a number of years now.
For anyone not in Tullamore during the week, it’s hard to visualize just how poor and outclassed we were.
The first ten minutes kk got loads of chances, butchered everyone of them... a combination of poor interlink play, selfishness and not passing ball between certain players.
I looked down to the kk defence when the ball was in the forwards and there was a tussle between jack canning and I think Tommy Walsh. Canning was pushing Walsh around, Walsh reacted caught and flung Canning sideways. At last I thought to myself, our sides are beginn8ng to grow some balls. But that was a false dawn. Galway with extremely efficient with the ball in the first half. Converted pretty much every chance. Kk butchered pretty much every decent chance. Galway were asleep but found scores easier, as there interlink play and determination when it mattered were clearly far superior to kk’s. The second half was utterly terrible. Galway were 10+ points a better side. It was like watching an intermediate side play a senior side where the intermediate side got on top at sections of the game only for the senior side to turn it on for a few minutes and utterly destroy them with determination, e. With team play and sheer doggedness.
Kk’s backs were a shambles. A number of them simply not within an asses roar of intercounty standard. Mossy was given a lesson at centre back. And at least two of the three goals came through him, and right down the middle through the full back Walsh, who is no full back. Kk hurling has gone soft, and everyone else has got tough.
Leahy put it in at the end to show what he is capable of, but he didn’t do it for three quarters of that game. Donnelly wasn’t bad but as senior players that’s the least that is expected.
Kk clumped together and showed no imagination. Galway fought like deamons, and the moment they got the ball, spread out. Kk never marked a man for the day, which made it easier again for Galway. Even the backs left the Galway players get the ball before they made any effort to stop them.
Another example of a decent minor side plummet at speed post minor into mediocre players. Kk is fcuked for another 4 to 5 years as we have no backs and no forwards coming through.
We’d have been better off have been beaten by 15 points but have two maybe three class players on the U-21 side rather than 18 average ones.
Cody is not a miracle worker. Give him talent and he’ll convert to all Ireland’s but we are handing him weak as water dross. He’s a winner, and won’t stay around if the county board, don’t realise that this is a watershed moment and take significant action.
The Galway senior team are similar and will hammer us if they put there mind to it. The younger players are simply not good enough, and are too soft.

Serious over reaction to the under 21 match here. Talk of county being finished for the next 4 or 5 years etc. Lads would do well to remember a few lessons of previous under 21 teams. Take the 2002 team beaten by Wexford in Nowlan Park. Again the talk was of no backs coming through and of young lads being too soft with Wexford having walked through the Kilkenny defence late in the game to get the winning goal. Yet who was in that same defence only Jackie Tyrrell, Tommy Walsh, JJ Delaney and Brian Hogan. They didn't turn out to be too bad did they!

suirway wrote: »

Serious over reaction to the under 21 match here. Talk of county being finished for the next 4 or 5 years etc. Lads would do well to remember a few lessons of previous under 21 teams. Take the 2002 team beaten by Wexford in Nowlan Park. Again the talk was of no backs coming through and of young lads being too soft with Wexford having walked through the Kilkenny defence late in the game to get the winning goal. Yet who was in that same defence only Jackie Tyrrell, Tommy Walsh, JJ Delaney and Brian Hogan. They didn't turn out to be too bad did they!

Return to my point made above, we’d be better off losing by 15+ points and having two maybe three class players coming 5hrough than 18 average ones.

Dionysis wrote: »

Kilkenny’s respect for the U-21 grade has been in free fall for the past 15 years. We have been paying the price for the past 10 years. 2008 our last win, and the last time our U-21 side produced a hurler of real class,ie Hogan and TJ.

Kk have been producing soft hurlers for a number of years now.
For anyone not in Tullamore during the week, it’s hard to visualize just how poor and outclassed we were.
The first ten minutes kk got loads of chances, butchered everyone of them... a combination of poor interlink play, selfishness and not passing ball between certain players.
I looked down to the kk defence when the ball was in the forwards and there was a tussle between jack canning and I think Tommy Walsh. Canning was pushing Walsh around, Walsh reacted caught and flung Canning sideways. At last I thought to myself, our sides are beginn8ng to grow some balls. But that was a false dawn. Galway with extremely efficient with the ball in the first half. Converted pretty much every chance. Kk butchered pretty much every decent chance. Galway were asleep but found scores easier, as there interlink play and determination when it mattered were clearly far superior to kk’s. The second half was utterly terrible. Galway were 10+ points a better side. It was like watching an intermediate side play a senior side where the intermediate side got on top at sections of the game only for the senior side to turn it on for a few minutes and utterly destroy them with determination, e. With team play and sheer doggedness.
Kk’s backs were a shambles. A number of them simply not within an asses roar of intercounty standard. Mossy was given a lesson at centre back. And at least two of the three goals came through him, and right down the middle through the full back Walsh, who is no full back. Kk hurling has gone soft, and everyone else has got tough.
Leahy put it in at the end to show what he is capable of, but he didn’t do it for three quarters of that game. Donnelly wasn’t bad but as senior players that’s the least that is expected.
Kk clumped together and showed no imagination. Galway fought like deacons, and the moment they got the ball, spread out. Kk never marked a man for the day, which made it easier again for Galway. Even the backs left the Galway players get the ball before they made any effort to stop them.
Another example of a decent minor side plummet at speed post minor into mediocre players. Kk is fcuked for another 4 to 5 years as we have no backs and no forwards coming through.
We’d have been better off have been beaten by 15 points but have two maybe three class players on the U-21 side rather than 18 average ones.
Cody is not a miracle worker. Give him talent and he’ll convert to all Ireland’s but we are handing him weak as water dross. He’s a winner, and won’t stay around if the county board, don’t realise that this is a watershed moment and take significant action.
The Galway senior team are similar and will hammer us if they put there mind to it. The younger players are simply not good enough, and are too soft.

I agree, people are just to afraid to say it in case it might be true. We have no backs or forwards of real quality coming through

Was at the minor today. The overall performance was poor i thought and questions the favourites tag this team has for all ireland glory. Offaly brought their A game and a large number of KK players didn't fire, especially in the forwards. Hopefully it's just a case that they were hard to motivate in a game where they were very much expected to win.
There was a stiff enough breeze with offaly in the first half that Offaly made the most of and KK's forwards struggled with. There didn't seem to be much good ball being delivered between players and there definitely didn't seem to be much good running and link up play. Conor Kelly and Ciaran Brennan were the main two attackers that brought the fight and a bit of class to the opposition. Brennan had an early goal disallowed for square ball(it definitely wasnt-very like DJ against Clare in '02) Conor Kelly was very influential at midfield, frees were good and he popped up and worked everywhere. Two other forwards of note were Eoin Guilfoyle and George Murphy- both had red helmets so hard to read which was which, and both produced moments of ball winning and scores. The backs didn't seem to click and most seemed to need two touches to do the simple things or sometimes took the wrong option. Best of the backs was Dempsey at full back particularly near the end of the game. Moylan had to go off at half time for whatever reason.
With the breeze for the second half it should have been more straight forward for KK to see it out-Offaly with only two points against the wind for most of the second half until they got a lucky goal from a goalkeeper mistake. This goal brought it back very close and nervy for the last ten mins and KK made hard work of tacking on insurance points-even though KK had another goal disallowed for square ball near the end.

This minor team should be and are better than their performance today. Last week they had a very slow start against Westmeath before blowing them away in the second half.

dubcat51 wrote: »

Will need to step up in the final.know they beat dublin in the first round but the game was alot tighter than the score.should be a great curtain raiser before senior game

The Joe McDonagh is the curtain raiser next Sunday. Was told a few weeks ago that the Minor was going to be played on the Saturday unless that had changed since. If it was to be played as a triple header it would have to start at about 11.30am, we'd need to set off now !🀣

dubcat51 wrote: »

Will need to step up in the final.know they beat dublin in the first round but the game was alot tighter than the score.should be a great curtain raiser before senior game

Massive step up required to deal with Dublin's big effective full forward, luke swan as well the powerful athletic running and support from midfield that the dubs got a bit of joy from that first day out- because of this i'd be happy not to have the match in the wide open spaces of croker. Probably be on in portlaoise if not carlow

Went up to minor match yesterday. Kilkenny were denied at least one perfectly legal goal (there were two that were given as square balls). Both Offaly goals were unfortunately goalkeeping errors from a usually v. good keeper. Kilkenny fullback and centre back were excellent. The Offaly centre forward scored 2-5 from play v Laois in the quarter final but was held scoreless. Referee seemed very determined to give KK frees rather than any advantage when they started running at the Offaly defence in the second half. Step up required for final v Dublin for sure by a number of players who have been very good up to yesterday.. Decided not to name anyone as all players are U-17. Our 9 and 11 will / should have very bright futures

northern lad wrote: »

Went up to minor match yesterday. Kilkenny were denied at least one perfectly legal goal (there were two that were given as square balls). Both Offaly goals were unfortunately goalkeeping errors from a usually v. good keeper. Kilkenny fullback and centre back were excellent. The Offaly centre forward scored 2-5 from play v Laois in the quarter final but was held scoreless. Referee seemed very determined to give KK frees rather than any advantage when they started running at the Offaly defence in the second half. Step up required for final v Dublin for sure by a number of players who have been very good up to yesterday.. Decided not to name anyone as all players are U-17. Our 9 and 11 will / should have very bright futures

Couldn't make it yesterday due to family commitments. Glad to hear that 3 and 6 did well as that was our 4th different starting combination, though the Dublin full forward will be a test for anyone next weekend. Built like a rugby flanker and he can hurl.

How did Jack Buggy go? He's someone i rate but he missed a couple of months through injury so could do with the game time.

So what are our expectations sunday?are we happy to give a good account of ourselves and lose by five or 6 points or can we get a win a blow the whole thing wide open.Its being a long time since we were such outsiders in a leinster final.
we'll obviously need a better return from our fowards and not being so reliant on tj.I wonder will aylward start or kevin kelly must be nearly back although it's unlikely he'll be thrown into start.
I'm hopefull cody can get the matchups right and we can have a right cut off galway but we'll need everyone going well.

Public sale of tickets in Nowlan Park is on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week, 27th - 29th June from 11am - 2pm.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

I think we did well in the finish against Dublin as well but I agree that in general we have not caught fire at all yet. The last outing against galway didn't give much cause for optimism and neither did the u21 last week. But I dunno, I just have a feeling this weekend might go better than we're being given credit for. Our forwards have been, let's be honest, totally septic so far this summer. But we'll hopefully have a fully fit and back in his rhythm Richie Hogan, meaning the opposition won't be able to consider the job done once they bottle up TJ. No particular reason for the hope on this, just a feeling, I think he has a point to prove right now and this is the match to do it. Not pinning everything on that but in general I think the forwards are "due" a break out. A few players have been showing flashes here and there and it's like they're waiting to click. Donnelly, for example. Walter has been underrated this year IMO, he's doing good work coming out hunting for ball while at other times playing the old fashioned full forward.

But the forwards performance will depend on how well we have adjusted at the back since the last game. Cody is notoriously bad at making changes in matches (I think that's a little overstated but anyway it has some truth) but he's always been great at responding to what went wrong between games, and there's no way we'll be as naive again in terms of letting Buckley get completely bottled up coming out with possession again, if they are serious about developing the passing game it's one thing to talk about giving good ball to the forwards, but the backs need to be supporting each other in possession to make that possible, if you're clearing under pressure that's impossible. I think with the extra space that will suit Buckley et al.

Can't do much about the physicality, Galway are just bigger tougher men than our lads, but that is no reason at all to be bullied. There needs to be a much bigger mean streak to the backs, a bit of bouldness. Paul Murphy needs to lead the way on that, make an early statement and less by example that this **** of being horsed out of it and pushed around isn't going to happen today.

But I have a good feeling. Kk by 1 or 2 is my prediction.

I agree with you on the Richie Hogan point. If he is at 90% or better it could have a major bearing on the game. He changed the final 2 years ago coming off the bench but i think we need him starting this time. We will learn a lot from this game as to where KK are heading.